Study tips

Googlize your memory

The computer is rotting your children’s’ brains! Standard panic response to new technology right? This argument has been heard for television, video games, even books (in much older times). But brains are changing according to the way we interact with the environment, and computers do speed up the process, researchers say.

Scientists from prestigious universities such as Berkley and Harvard say that we are using computers as “transactive memory” for people. Transactive memory is the way people rely on each other to remember. For example, a person in a long-term relationship may be less likely to remember an anointment or an event if s/he know their partner does.

In a way, researchers found, computers – and more so the net- is acting the same way: you are more likely to remember know where to look for information, rather than what the specifics of the information were.